Lisa Loeb – The Purple Tape
Eric Saeger
90s geek-pixie Lisa Loeb kills a few birds by including a full CD’s worth of softball NPR-style interviews along with the first-ever digital release of The Purple Tape. One: yes, even she looks back in horror at the white dress with cowboy boots ensembles; second, back in the day, she didn’t know what the word “stultify” meant and she still kind of doesn’t; and three, no, a lot of the time she has no idea what she was singing about either.
But that’s okay; either way she did (barely) survive the collapse of all things grunge with the help of a formula that cauterizes bummer situations with simple girlish wistfulness, not to mention a knack for marketing that almost single-handedly made four-eyed chicks painfully sexy. Purple Tape was where it all started for her, a 10-song demo of unplugged material she sweated heavily over in order to give clubgoers something to remember her by. The big hit here was/is “Do You Sleep” (this is the raw version, a precursor to what appeared on the Tails album), though nearly every song was well-representative of her Ani DiFranco for Dummies approach, which she couldn’t (and still can’t) help; DiFranco didn’t have a gastroenterologist dad put her through Brown University and couldn’t afford to be as scatterbrained as Loeb, thus one woman is for the heavy thinkers and one is for the roller-rinks. But then again, one couldn’t survive without the other, could they?
"Thank you Willie for the kind comments about my book. You are particularly on the nail about me consciously..."
"This is an excellent tour. Thank you, Dr. Nick, for taking me by the hand and introducing me to a..."
"Excellent research, compelling delivery................"
"The feedback is very much appreciated, CAP. I'm a huge fan of this interview and we're gradually uploading Thyrza Nichols..."
"Great interview, from obviously a very articulate artist. A shame it's so old though. Could the artist's views have changed..."